Re: Why ADM is a good idea with poor implementation?

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Note: This message is from the outliners.com archive kindly provided by Dave Winer.

Outliners.com Message ID: 5263

Posted by srdiamond15
2006-02-15 16:06:59

<Stephen, I don’t defend what happened, but as lawyer you know that there are different interpretations for a behaviour, and that the most obvious interpretation may not be the most accurate. My sense is that because of the proverbial shoe string ADM’s developers are stretched too thin, and that there is organizational slippage—in other words, the level of organization isn’t optimal. You are attributing motive; you could be right, but I think that just as good a case can be made for the stance I take.
If you want to look at what ADM has accomplished: ADM 3 was like a completely new product cf ADM 2 because of the introduction of metadata capabilities>

One way you distinguish organizational slippage (negligence) from willful misconduct is where a problem arises from the former, steps are taken to correct the problem once it is recognized. If that were the case, the developer would have agreed to my demand for a refund on the product or take some other steps to rectify the wrong he ratified. There is absolutely no difference legally (and in my opinion, ethically) between negligent conduct knowingly ratified after the fact and knowingly wrongful conduct.

(How much code is currently in ADM? Version 3 came out with under a megabyte. I don’t think that’s enough to do what’s intended. You hear about inefficient coding, but there’s a limit to what that can explain. On this point I am really commenting beyond my competence—I’d like to hear the comments of people who know something about programming—but my opinion has been that ADM simply couldn’t accomplish what it claims, because there just isn’t enough of it. <g> (My mental image is that programming is like a nervous system. You program a function. Then you have to do things to inhibit corollary functions it inappropriately brings forth. This image could be pure fantasy. But if there’s anything truth to it, ADM 3 acts like a program where many of the inhibiting processes were omitted. That is shortcuts harmful to stability were taken.)

Here’s a question for you, Daly. ADM is introducing features faster than any other product you know of. What enables it to do this? Does ADM have more money to throw at development than everyone else. No, you have said the opposite. So what exactly *explains* the rapid pace of “development,” besides the developer’s unlimited tolerance for bugs and half-baked implementation.

Stephen R. Diamond

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